Courts Commons^™

The State Attorney General’S Duty To Advise As A Source Of Law, Winthrop Jordan

University of Richmond Law Review

This Comment seeks to help fill that gap by considering how a state attorney general’s duty to advise functions as a source of law, by proposing six general models of how the opinions of a state attorney general can alter the legal rights, duties, and relations of persons. In doing so, this Comment still seeks to acknowledge and respect the fact that each state’s individual constitution and traditions will create a unique role for its attorney general’s duty to advise in shaping state law.

What Does It Take? The Informal Factors That Are Conducive To The Passage Of A Participatory Amendment, Connor Huydic

Honors Scholar Theses

Hundreds of Constitutional revisions are proposed in our national legislature every year, yet only twenty-seven have been ratified as amendments in the 243-year history of the United States. The Constitution outlines the formal factors required to ratify an amendment, but this paper will focus on the informal factors that are integral to the eventual passage of a participatory amendment. Through case studies of the Nineteenth and Twenty-Sixth Amendments, this thesis examines the factors that contributed to the ratification of these amendments to find similarities in the circumstances that helped propel these bills to eventual adoption as amendments. Non-radical social movements, …

Looking Beyond Batson: A Different Method Of Combating Bias Against Queer Jurors, Anna L. Tayman

William & Mary Law Review

On November 27, 1978, Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California’s history, was murdered. He was shot five times, twice in the head. His murderer, Dan White, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and served only five years in prison.

The Dan White trial is the most famous example of queer juror exclusion in American history. While White’s defense attorney, Douglas Schmidt, could not directly ask the jurors about their sexual orientation, he had another strategy: find the gays and allies and keep them out, and find the Catholics and keep them in. Schmidt struck a woman who …

The Right To A Well-Rested Jury, Caroline Howe

Michigan Law Review

The vast amount of control that state trial judges exercise over the dynamics of their courtrooms is well established. The length of trial days and jury deliberations, however, has received little scholarly attention. Longstanding research has conclusively established the disruptive effects of sleep deprivation on many of the mental facilities necessary for juries to competently fulfill their duties. By depriving juries of sleep, trial judges may be compromising the fair rights of criminal defendants for the sake of efficiency. This Note argues that trial judges must use their discretion to ensure juries are well-rested, keeping jurors’ needs in mind. Further, …

Lessons Learned, Lessons Offered: Creating A Domestic Violence Drug Court, Judge Rosie Speedlin Gonzalez, Dr. Stacy Speedlin Gonzalez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Precedent Within The High Court, Kwan Ho Lau

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

A number of Masters and a Registrar have recently indicated that they, when exercising High Court jurisdiction, are not bound strictly to follow prior decisions made by Judges in the High Court. This represents a notable departure from the position established by and within the High Court, where since the Judicature Acts of 1873 and 1875 an unquestioning obeisance of the Master and Registrar towards such decisions has been generally expected and offered. Delving into questions of power, authority and jurisdiction, and examining relevant legislation such as the Civil Procedure Rules, this article constructs and analyses various arguments for and …

Analyses Of Prosecutorial Power And Discretion In Mississippi: Evaluating Proposals To Address Misconduct And Abuse, Lucy Pruitt

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to create a policy proposal in order to address incidences of prosecutorial misconduct and abuse of discretion in the Mississippi criminal justice system. To do so, the author has summarized and analyzed seven criminal cases in which defendants have become victims of prosecutorial misconduct in order to shed light on the lack of prosecutorial accountability in the state’s criminal justice system. In an attempt to solve the problem, the author has developed a novel grading rubric in order to objectively and systematically analyze and evaluate previously proposed policy recommendations by legal experts and justice organizations. The successes …

An Open Letter To The Ohio Supreme Court: Setting A Uniform Standard On Anders Briefs, Matthew D. Fazekas

Cleveland State Law Review

Attorneys are faced with an ethical dilemma when they represent indigent defendants who wish to appeal a criminal sentence, but that appeal would be frivolous. In 1967, the United States Supreme Court, in Anders v. California, introduced a procedure protecting the rights of indigent defendants that balanced the ethical concerns of an attorney forced to file a frivolous appeal. In 2000, the Court in Smith v. Robbins held that the states can set their own procedure for the aforementioned ethical dilemma, so long as it protects the rights of indigent defendants in compliance with the Fourteenth Amendment. This has …

Decoding Judicial Reasoning In China: A Comparative Empirical Analysis Of Guiding Cases, Runhua Wang

Cleveland State Law Review

The judicial system in China recently started using legal precedents—known as guiding cases—as a new legal source to eliminate adjudicative inconsistency. Guiding cases (“GCs”) present the current judicial reasoning to some extent and can be used to predict the future of judicial reasoning in China. What are GCs? What legal issues do GCs address? How do they address legal issues? How do GCs affect the legal system and adjudication in China? This Article answers these questions with empirical evidence and comparisons to judicial reasoning in the United States. It is the first empirical research providing a systematic review of all …

Land Of The Free, If You Can Afford It: Reforming Mayor's Courts In Ohio, Lucia Lopez-Hisijos

Cleveland State Law Review

Unlike most states in America, Ohio has a unique system of punishing minor misdemeanors and ordinance violations through municipal institutions called mayor’s courts. In 2017, Ohio had 295 of these courts, and they heard nearly 300,000 cases. But these are not normal courts. Ohio’s mayor’s courts do not conduct ability to pay hearings and can jail defendants who fail to pay court fines. With the author’s original research into Ohio’s mayor’s courts, this Note argues that these institutions can function like modern-day debtor’s prisons and violate indigent defendants’ constitutional right to Due Process. Ultimately, this Note proposes a model bill …

Law School News: Rwu Law Professors Win Release For Two Immigrants At Risk For Covid-19 04-24-2020, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Fmc Corp. V. Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, Seth T. Bonilla

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In 1998, FMC Corporation agreed to submit to the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes’ permitting processes, including the payment of fees, for clean-up work required as part of consent decree negotiations with the Environmental Protection Agency. Then, in 2002, FMC refused to pay the Tribes under a permitting agreement entered into by both parties, even though the company continued to store hazardous waste on land within the Shoshone-Bannock Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho. FMC challenged the Tribes’ authority to enforce the $1.5 million permitting fees first in tribal court and later challenged the Tribes’ authority to exercise civil regulatory and adjudicatory jurisdiction over …

The Truthsayer And The Court: Expert Testimony On Credibility, Michael W. Mullane

Maine Law Review

The purpose of this Article is to analyze the admissibility of expert testimony on credibility. State v. Woodburn serves as a lens to focus on the broader issues. The primary issue is an examination of expert testimony on credibility in light of the Federal Rules of Evidence and their progeny. The Rules of Evidence mandate admission or exclusion of expert testimony based on certain criteria. How are these criteria applied to expert testimony on credibility? How should they be applied? The surprising survivability of other criteria discarded by the Rules is also considered.

Judge, J. Peter Byrne

Maine Law Review

The Editorial Board and Staff of Volume 43 of the Maine Law Review enthusiastically dedicate this issue to Judge Frank M. Coffin. Judge Coffin was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit by President Lyndon Baines Johnson on October 2, 1965, and took the oath of office six weeks later. Since his retirement on February 1, 1989, he has continued to serve the federal judiciary with distinction in the capacity of a United States Senior Circuit Judge. Each of the four tributes that follow, though brief, resonate with the respect and affection inspired by the …

An Advocate's Perception, Margaret D. Mcgaughey

Maine Law Review

The Editorial Board and Staff of Volume 43 of the Maine Law Review enthusiastically dedicate this issue to Judge Frank M. Coffin. Judge Coffin was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit by President Lyndon Baines Johnson on October 2, 1965, and took the oath of office six weeks later. Since his retirement on February 1, 1989, he has continued to serve the federal judiciary with distinction in the capacity of a United States Senior Circuit Judge. Each of the four tributes that follow, though brief, resonate with the respect and affection inspired by the …

A Tribute To Judge Coffin, Stephen Breyer

Maine Law Review

The Editorial Board and Staff of Volume 43 of the Maine Law Review enthusiastically dedicate this issue to Judge Frank M. Coffin. Judge Coffin was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit by President Lyndon Baines Johnson on October 2, 1965, and took the oath of office six weeks later. Since his retirement on February 1, 1989, he has continued to serve the federal judiciary with distinction in the capacity of a United States Senior Circuit Judge. Each of the four tributes that follow, though brief, resonate with the respect and affection inspired by the …

Judge Frank M. Coffin, Edmund S. Muskie

Maine Law Review

The Editorial Board and Staff of Volume 43 of the Maine Law Review enthusiastically dedicate this issue to Judge Frank M. Coffin. Judge Coffin was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit by President Lyndon Baines Johnson on October 2, 1965, and took the oath of office six weeks later. Since his retirement on February 1, 1989, he has continued to serve the federal judiciary with distinction in the capacity of a United States Senior Circuit Judge. Each of the four tributes that follow, though brief, resonate with the respect and affection inspired by the …

State V. Violette: Harsher Resentencing Encounters A Bolder Resumption Of Vindictiveness, Thomas C. Bradley

Maine Law Review

Twenty-one years ago, in Weeks v. State, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, adopted a rule to prevent judicial vindictiveness when resentencing defendants who had successfully appealed their conviction and been reconvicted. The Weeks court adopted as a state due process protection the United States Supreme Court's rule laid down the preceding year in North Carolina v. Pearce. The Pearce rule provides that harsher resentencing of such defendants creates a presumption of constitutionally prohibited vindictiveness unless the harsher sentence is explicitly based on some identifiable misconduct by the defendant since the prior sentencing. Thus, the Law …

Vincent L. Mckusick And The Maine Rules Of Civil Procedure: A Thirty-Five Year Perspective, L. Kinvin Wroth

Maine Law Review

The Editorial Board and Staff of Volume 43 of the Maine Law Review enthusiastically dedicate this issue to Vincent L. McKusick, Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Chief Justice McKusick took the oath of office on September 16, 1977, having been appointed the previous month by Governor James B. Longley, and will retire on February 28, 1992. As the following tributes make clear, the contributions he has made to the betterment of state and national legal institutions during his tenure evidence the same qualities of integrity and excellence that have been the hallmarks of his long and distinguished …

Structure Of The Maine Court System, 1956-1991, Edward S. Godfrey

Maine Law Review

The Editorial Board and Staff of Volume 43 of the Maine Law Review enthusiastically dedicate this issue to Vincent L. McKusick, Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Chief Justice McKusick took the oath of office on September 16, 1977, having been appointed the previous month by Governor James B. Longley, and will retire on February 28, 1992. As the following tributes make clear, the contributions he has made to the betterment of state and national legal institutions during his tenure evidence the same qualities of integrity and excellence that have been the hallmarks of his long and distinguished …